In marketing, a coupon is a ticket or document that can be exchanged for a financial discount, rebate, or other value related to goods or services. Customarily, coupons are issued by manufacturers of consumer packaged goods or by retailers, to be used in retail stores as a part of sales promotions. Coupons are often widely distributed through mail, magazines, newspapers and computer networks. Coupons distributed via computer networks have become popular because there is no postal cost and any printing cost is borne by the user, who may print the coupons, rather than the businesses issuing them.
Online retailers often refer to their coupons as “coupon codes,” “promotional codes,” “promotion codes,” “discount codes,” “key codes,” “promo codes,” “shopping codes,” “voucher codes” or “source codes.” Such electronic coupons typically provide for reduced cost or free shipping, a specific dollar or percentage discount, or some other offer to encourage consumers to purchase specific products or to purchase from specific retailers.
However, the popularity of electronic coupons has given rise to various problems. An electronic coupon that is submitted for redemption may be fraudulent and the business redeeming the coupon may not have issued the coupon. Because some retail stores in a national business may redeem only some of the business' electronic coupons, the selective retail stores need to be able to determine how an electronic coupon was issued before deciding whether to redeem the electronic coupon. Furthermore, businesses that issue electronic coupons need to verify that electronic coupons being submitted to a clearing house for redemption are actually being redeemed at a valid retail store for the business.